Tides of War

Gaps are the enemy

Imperfections on the surface of both the CPU die and the Heatsink create an imperfect contact point between the two surfaces. The CPU die and Heatsink might look pretty smooth but when their surfaces meet, the sometimes invisible imperfections on each surface leave gaps in their contact. Air in the gaps acts as a really inefficient heat conductor. These gaps are what thermal paste is meant to fill, so that instead of having poor heat conducting air in those gaps, you have much better conducting thermal paste. Now many of these gaps are microscopic, so much so that you would never notice that the enefficiencies were there at all. But your CPU temperatures will show it: no one in their right mind would run a CPU without a heatsink and thermal interface simply because the raw contact of the two surfaces will NOT transfer enough heat to maintain what enthusiasts would consider to be comfortable temperatures. So now you know why properly applying thermal paste means applying thin layers of paste.

I'd say my money was well spent. That paragraph is straight from your link.

Anyway, it's not really worth arguing over. You DO need a nice even complete layer to make sure you get MAXIMUM heat transfer capabilities, as the size of the heat sink and processor both are added into the equation down to the smallest mm to ensure the proper surface area to get rid of a certain amount of heat.

All boils down to conduction between the processor and heat sink....and convection between the heat sink and fan.

Don't wanna argue, though.

as i said.. its to level out the surfaces...

Ok Jesper, since you are both saying the same thing...we can stop yes?

Is this the best stuff?

http://www.arcticsilver.com/

Everyone tells me so.

Is this the best stuff?
http://www.arcticsilver.com/

Everyone tells me so.

That's what I've heard too. It's what I used on my Intel P4 processor, although sometimes I think I should have stuck with the thermal tape which came stuck to it. My processor still runs a little warm when running a game. Could be the stock fan is a little weak, though.

Don't go too crazy with the paste. Don't get it on the pins of the processor. Make sure to speard it evenly, a nice thin coat. Don't use thermal tape and paste together. It's one or the other. Peel the thermal tape off if you use the silver.

Be sure to run a CPU vitals monitoring program and keep an eye on the core temperature of the CPU, particularly when running games.

Good luck.

timetraveller